Unveiling the impacts of high-standard farmland construction on climate-smart agriculture

Extreme climate risks and farmland structural constraints are intensifying agricultural vulnerability, making the improvement of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) essential for enhancing agricultural resilience and sustainability. High-standard farmland construction (HSFC) represents an important practice for advancing CSA by improving cultivated land quality and farmland infrastructure. However, existing studies have mainly examined HSFC’s effects on single outcomes, including yield, efficiency, or environmental performance, with insufficient attention to whether it can simultaneously advance multiple CSA objectives or generate synergies and trade-offs among them. To examine the multidimensional linkages between HSFC and CSA, this study proposes an integrated Pressure-State-Response-Objective (PSRO) analytical framework. Using 2003–2022 panel data for 122 counties in Hunan Province, we apply a continuous difference-in-differences (DID) model and mechanism tests to estimate HSFC’s policy effects and assess transmission through input optimization, technology upgrading, and cultivated-land habitat quality. Results show that (1) HSFC has a positive and significant policy effect on CSA, with estimated coefficients of about 0.011–0.012 across specifications; (2) HSFC positively influences CSA in pillars food security and climate adaptation, but negatively affects pillar carbon mitigation in the short term; (3) heterogeneous effects are evident across regions, with stronger impacts where regional development conditions and land-consolidation potential are more favorable; (4) CSA gains from HSFC arise from improved farmland production conditions, reduced per-output input pressure, and complementary technological and cultivated-land habitat improvements. This study links a land-consolidation mega-program with a multi-pillar CSA index under an integrated PSRO framework and offers guidance for coordinating food security, climate resilience, and carbon mitigation.